Brian: I think I know the food distribution that you are referring to. Wasn't that when the Symbionese Liberation Front was holding Patty Hearst hostage and they demanded that her father donate about $40,000 worth of food to the poor? They went through a series of those demands, and then they never released her. And then she joined their group. I think there were at least two of those food drop offs and they both turned into near riots. I had moved from the Bay Area at the time, but I was following the case closely in the newspaper and on TV.
BINGO! You're right! That's what it was ... The SLA.